Has anyone built this thing ever?

[Blitzbrain]

I found this in the Gallery... (see attachment)
Unfortunately cannot find anyone having built this idea.
Cannot remember the date, but as far as I know someone posted this in 2009/2010

This should work...

Any discussion on that?

[AB Hammer]

Blitzbrain

There has been test of the magnetic lift tracks and to have one strong enough to do the lift. It was to strong to release. If you look up magnet devices you will see the problem in those test. If you use a electromagnet in pulse form? You will be able to get a running wheel but will it reach over unity? Otherwise there have been many lift types for just a little lift with weights on each end. I have worked with the short lift as well.

[Blitzbrain]

Well as far as I can see it, there is a spring at the bottom, that forces metal balls to be flipped up again... and then they fall down on the right hand side...

This is a typical sample for an overbalanced wheel. On One Side there is action and force... the uprising side is empty...

There is no magnetism involved. You have to click the image of it and see it in full...

I would build it with a coil and an electric switched relais. I also would let the tracks not be straight but rather curved for better rolling capacities of the balls...

[AB Hammer]

Sorry I was going by the smaller picture which seems to show a yellow line going at an angle from like 6:30 to 12:15. Obviously and optical illusion of the smaller picture. I am a bit in a daze for one of my best friends was found dead at her boyfriends house shot. At first it was thought self inflicted but is being investigated as a murder. So I jumped to another wheel I knew of and is similar to the picture.

As for the spring. The amount of force to compress it is to great to make such a shift. I have tried reset springs before. There are some very interesting way to use springs though but not in the shown manner.

One of my very first wheels I have posted on this forum used a pinch method to shoot weights like marbles/tiddlywinks. It falls in this type of category. Here is the string back from 2007.

http://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/viewt ... 4242#44242

[ssmyser]

Sorry about your friend Alan.

[Unbalanced]

@Blitzbrain

This pinball mechanism is like so many other attempts at lifting weight by means of a ramp. Note: a ramp can take many forms such as a screw lift, a cog, etc etc., in this instance a ramp is used to depress a spring that when released, shoots the weight (ball) up to the top.

The problem with all these type of devises can best be understood by reducing the number of mechanisms to their lowest number of components.

In this scenario, one falling ball would load the spring sufficiently to propel the ball back to its point of origin at the top.

This can be simplified by doing away with all the ramps and wheel components and just dropping the ball directly onto the spring.

The falling ball can never depress the spring sufficiently to propel the ball back to its height of origin.

The amount of potential energy that can be extracted at the point of impact
(collision, ball to spring) is equal to the amount of energy necessary to raise the ball to its height of origin, less dissipating forces such as friction, wind and other resistive forces.

[Blitzbrain]

Hello Alan,
So sorry about what happened to your friend. What kind of people would do something like that...?

Hello Unbalalnced,

I'll never build this thing just with one mechanism.
Imagine that in a row of ... let's say 5 or 6 Mechanisms, so that the power of the falling balls in conjunction will fire the one switch at the bottom.
This is what I presume happened with Besslers' Wheel as well...
He had 8 times a 'hit' per revoloution, but I think he worked only 1 wheight at a time...

[Unbalanced]

To Blitzbrain,

Your's is a widely held misconception. The reasoning; that the weight of many balls dropping must surely be adequate to load the spring sufficiently to propel each ball back to its point of origin in one cycle, is false.

Aldo Costa's enormous ferris wheel sized devise is a reasonable example of this.

Our minds deceive us into believing that with so many foot pounds of potential energy exerted on the descending side that surely there must be ample energy to move each individual mass back to its height of origin.

The only way to make sense of any of these designs is to break their movements down into as many steps as necessary to complete one cycle.

The reality is depressing to the would-be gravity engine designer. There is never, will forever be never, sufficient energy in one cycle to perpetuate the motion.

In the illustration you have posted there are two balls but there could just as easily be a hundred balls. The fact remains that each single ball has to generate enough kinetic energy to reset itself to its original height or potential. Even in a perfect configuration this would be a zero net gain.

Edited to add:

As an example: two balls dropping may have the potential to depress the spring sufficiently to fire one ball back to the top but two balls dropping will never be sufficient to fire those same two balls back to the top in one cycle. You may change the numbers anyway you wish but in the end, one ball falling has to raise one ball to its original height.

The more balls you add, the less degree of rotation the wheel will have to travel, to accomplish the same spring deflection necessary to fire one ball back to the top. In other words, the more balls you add the steeper your ramps have to be and the wheel feels the same negative torque (for each spring deflection) regardless of the number of weights.

[Unbalanced]

Further To Blitzbrain,

Please do not think that my input is in anyway meant to dissuade you from your line of research or to dampen your enthusiasm in anyway.

The title of your thread posits the question: "Has anyone built this thing ever?"

I have built many similar devises and several that were very neary identical before coming to the conclusions I have shared.

My intentions are to save you some time and resources.

I should have added that what I stated above is also irrespective of the path that the balls travel whether descending or flying upwards.

What I like about this design is: A) that the weights fly up in a straight path to the top. Bessler mentions (I paraphrase) that it is difficult to imagine how fast the weights fly up. B) that all of the weights are either in the center or to one side.

I wish you all good tidings and welcome to Besslerwheel.

If in our research, we can not share the foundation of our findings with one another, then we lose the greatest aspect that this forum has to offer us.

Gravity may play a part in Bessler's mechanism, but it is improbable that it is the only source of energy.

Welcome to the forum. I look forward to your input into the future.

To ABHammer:

Terribly sorry to hear of the loss of your friend. I too have had a similar loss by firearm of a friend this week. I count you as a friend in this and every pursuit so keep in touch.

Edited to also add: Blitzbrain, When you find a way to make two or more balls fly up as one falls, then you'll have the answer.

Curtis

[murilo]

SORRY, ALAN and CURTIS!!!

[Blitzbrain]

Hello Curtis...

Thank you for your so detailed reply.
You have built similar devices? Really?
Can I see them?... This would save me some time and money...

BUT... have you read my question?

You are right, when saying, "each ball hasn't got the strength to propell itself up again..." but will eight have? If you build just one device like the one in the picture... ok... I agree, it would be tough beans for the mechanism... Did you build a similar device of what I have been saying? If I have eight balls in the downfall...all giving their force onto the rim of the wheel, then using this force to span the spring of just ONE ball at a time...? You have to build 7 or 8 mechanisms in row, all with an offset of 22,5 ° or 30°, connected to each other. So that only one ball is shot, but 8 are falling at the same time to power the mechanism... this would give you a diferent effect.

I have a steel ball with 28mm in Diameter at my shop. it weighs exactly 96 grams. Now imagine eight of these balls on the side of the rim pressing downwards. The top and the bottom ones have 0g force. the one at 3 o'clock has its full 96g. the one at 1 and 5 have only 10% = + 18g the one at 2 and 4 have approx 60% which would be around 2x57g = 114 g

All in all we would have approx 230 g on the rim... now here comes the trick... Do not use the power of the rim to span the spring... use it at the axle. THERE you have power. Imagine the wheel being 100cm in diameter, tha axle being 2cm this will give you 50:1 power supply, which is 50x228g = 11,4 kg of force at the rim of the axle. from 228g of force at the perimeter of the wheel.

I imagine whith that kind of force it might be possible to set tension on a spring to flip a 96g pistol ball up for a meter...
It is all about levers and force. Bessler as an organ builder knew this... and he was using force against force within his wheel...

My plans for the wheel, are quite diferent from the above discussioned design... but do not forget: Bessler had eight wheights hitting the rim during one revolution of the wheel. What if he lifted eight times, what was lying in the rim.... and then letting it drop again afterwards... Whith the diameter of his last wheel, this was a tremendous mass of power, that he could generate at the axle just by having 8 kg, lying on the one half of his perimeter... did you ever calculate that? I did it once... it must have been around 154kg of potential power....at the axle of his wheel.

You may call me a wannabe Besslerian... and maybe I am...I am not an engineer, no Physics genius.... just a cabinetmaker... but maybe... this is my luck... beati pauperes spiritu...

I do things a little mor out of intuition... and I also had my share of not working designs built in nights of enthusiasm and distress...

This is why I take a little more focus on designs, that are "off the chain"... if you know, what I mean...

So IF you had built "similar" diveices... I'd really like to see them...
I have no one seen building the one in the above design yet.

Anyway... My figures above are rough and not very accurate... Maybe they are even wrong... and the may even sound funny to you.

Bessler had profound wisdom of mechanics of his time... and he tried and errored for approx. 10 years... THis is only my fifth and I have less knowledge than him... so I have got still some time...

[Unbalanced]

Hello Blitzbrain,

I no longer have the build I made of this concept nor photos of them. Mine utilized a leaf spring.

I understand your thinking but stand by my rationalization that your eight weights will be unable to lift themselves.

The concept isn't as intuitive as a person may think. When I think of this and other similar concepts, I too tend to overlook certain facts that make these concepts unworkable.

It is easy to believe that eight falling balls should have the necessary potential energy to fire one ball at a time back to its original height.

Rather than reiterating all that I have already written, I will wish you all good luck in building your own version.

It would be interesting to hear from other forum members here as I am certain that many will disagree with my assessment.

[Unbalanced]

Brainblitz

This photo of the waterwheel comes from The Museum of Unworkable Devises thanks be to Donald E. Simanek. If you have not visited this site, it is worth doing http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/unwork.htm

This water wheel is basically the same concept you are proposing. Here we load up the entire descending side of a wheel and with the resulting force we pump water back to a reservoir on top.

There have been countless iterations of this concept that suffer far less friction than those involving the loading of a spring.

[daanopperman]

Hi Blitzbrain ,

I like your spring wheel gun , why does someone not just put a spring to be unloaded at the top of the wheel to compensate for the bottom loading spring . A spring on the inside at the top of the wheel running on the same cam as the bottom spring will cancel the torque needed to load the bottom spring

[Blitzbrain]

hi daan,
why not tesioning the spring at the axle?
That is the place with most of the strength.
there you don't have to fondle around with the forces. it is easy.
The power from the rim is a lot higher at the axle.